5:20—Flora Miles, dummy, Table No. 1, leaves living room to telephone.5:22—Clive Hammond arrives and goes directly into solarium.5:23—End of rubber at Table No. 1. Players: Polly Beale, Janet Raymond, Lois Dunlap, Flora Miles (dummy). Polly Beale leaves living room to join Clive Hammond in solarium.5:24—Janet Raymond leaves room; says she went straight to front porch.5:25—Tracey Miles parks car at curb; walks up to the house, hangs up hat in clothes closet and at (his estimate)5:27—Miles enters living room, talks with Nita, who, as dummy, has just laid down her cards at Table No. 2. Players: Karen Marshall, Penny Crain, Carolyn Drake.5:28—Nita leaves living room, goes to her bedroom to make up.5:28-1/2—Lois Dunlap and Miles go into dining room, Miles to make cocktails.5:31—Judge Marshall enters living room, interrupts bridge game.5:33—John C. Drake enters living room, having walked from Country Club, which he says he left at 5:10, and which is only three-quarters of a mile from the Selim house.5:36—Karen finishes playing of hand, and Dexter Sprague and Janet Raymond enter from front porch, proceeding into dining room.5:37—Penny Crain finishes scoring, and Karen leaves room to tell Nita the score.5:38—Karen screams upon discovering the dead body at the dressing-table.
5:20—Flora Miles, dummy, Table No. 1, leaves living room to telephone.
5:22—Clive Hammond arrives and goes directly into solarium.
5:23—End of rubber at Table No. 1. Players: Polly Beale, Janet Raymond, Lois Dunlap, Flora Miles (dummy). Polly Beale leaves living room to join Clive Hammond in solarium.
5:24—Janet Raymond leaves room; says she went straight to front porch.
5:25—Tracey Miles parks car at curb; walks up to the house, hangs up hat in clothes closet and at (his estimate)
5:27—Miles enters living room, talks with Nita, who, as dummy, has just laid down her cards at Table No. 2. Players: Karen Marshall, Penny Crain, Carolyn Drake.
5:28—Nita leaves living room, goes to her bedroom to make up.
5:28-1/2—Lois Dunlap and Miles go into dining room, Miles to make cocktails.
5:31—Judge Marshall enters living room, interrupts bridge game.
5:33—John C. Drake enters living room, having walked from Country Club, which he says he left at 5:10, and which is only three-quarters of a mile from the Selim house.
5:36—Karen finishes playing of hand, and Dexter Sprague and Janet Raymond enter from front porch, proceeding into dining room.
5:37—Penny Crain finishes scoring, and Karen leaves room to tell Nita the score.
5:38—Karen screams upon discovering the dead body at the dressing-table.
Dundee laid aside the typed sheet and reached for another, the typing of which was perfect, since Penny's efficient fingers had manipulated the keys.
When he had telephoned to the office just before five o'clock Monday afternoon to see if anything had come up, Dundee had learned from Penny that Peter Dunlap had issued an informal call to "the crowd" for a meeting at his home that evening.
"You're going, of course?" Dundee had asked. "Then, during the discussion of the case, I wish you'd try to get the answers to some questions which need clearing up—if you can do so without getting yourself 'in Dutch' with your friends.... Fine! Got a pencil?... Here goes!"
And now he was re-reading the "report" she had conscientiously written and left on his desk Tuesday morning:
"Peter, declaring he wanted to get at the bottom of this case, presided almost like a judge on the bench, and asked nearly every question you wanted the answer to. Everyone in the crowd adores gruff old Peter and no one dreamed of resenting his barrage of questions. What a detectivehewould make!
"First: Janet admitted that she did not go directly to the front porch when she left the living room after her table finished the last rubber. Went first to the hall lavatory to comb her hair and renew her make-up. Said she was there alone about five minutes, then went to the front porch. (Revised her story after Tracey had said he did not see her on the porch when he arrived.)
"Second: Judge Marshall said he glanced into the living room when he arrived, saw Karen, Carolyn and me absorbed in our game, and went on down the hall, to hang up his hat and stick. Proceeded immediately to the living room.
"Third: John Drake told Peter he entered the front hall and passed on to the lavatory to wash up. Felt sticky after his walk from the Country Club. Hung up hat in the guest closet. Went to living room within three minutes after reaching the house.
"Fourth: Polly and Clive told Peter they stayed together in the solarium the whole time, stationed at a front window, watching for Ralph. When Peter asked them if they could confirm Judge Marshall's story and Johnny Drake's story, they said they had seen them both arrive, but had paid no attention to them after they were in the house. It occurred to Peter, too, to wonder if either Polly or Clive went to Nita's room to warn her that Ralph knew about Sprague's having slept the night before in the upstairs bedroom. They both denied emphatically that they had done so.
"Fifth: Judge Marshall—the pompous old darling—still smarting under the insinuations you made about him and Nita right after the murder, volunteered the information to Peter that Nita hadnotpaid her rent, on the plea that she was short of funds, and that he had told her to let it go until it was quite convenient.
"Sixth: The word 'blackmail' was not mentioned, and Johnny Drake, because of professional ethics, I suppose, did not tell about Nita's two deposits of $5,000 each in his bank.
"Seventh: The secret shelf in the foyer closet was not mentioned.
"Peter's verdict, after he got through with us, was that only Sprague could have done it—using the gun and silencer which Nita herself had stolen from Hugo. I couldn't tell him that you are convinced that Lydia's alibi for him is a genuine one, for apparently Lydia hasn't told either Flora or Tracey that she was able to furnish Sprague an alibi.
"And that's all, except that Peter asked me to convey to you his apologies for his rudeness Monday afternoon.... Penelope Crain."
With a deep sigh Dundee laid Penny's report aside.
"And that does seem to be all, 'my dear Watson'," he told the parrot. "Exactly half a dozen possible suspects, and not an atom of actual evidence against one of them—except that Judge Marshall owned the gun. Six—count 'em: Judge Marshall, John Drake, Flora Miles, Clive Hammond, Polly Beale, Janet Raymond.... Every single one of them a possible victim of blackmail, since the girls all attended the Forsyte School, where Nita directed the Easter play for two years, and since the men make several trips a year to New York.... Six people, all of whom probably knew of the existence of the secret shelf.... Six people who knew Nita was in her bedroom, either from having seen her go or from hearing her powder box tinkling its damnable tune!... Yes, Penny! You're right! That's all—so far as Hamilton is concerned! If Sanderson won't let me go to New York—which is where this damned business started—I'll resign and go on my own, without wasting another day here!"
But Dundee did not go to New York the next morning. He was far too busy in Hamilton....
"Hello, Penny!" Dundee greeted the district attorney's private secretary Thursday morning at five minutes after nine. "Any news from Sanderson?"
"Yes," Penny Crain answered listlessly. "A night letter. He says his mother is still very low and that we're to wire him at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Chicago if anything turns up."
"Then I suppose I can reach him there by long distance," and Dundee lifted the telephone from Penny's desk to put in the call.
"What's happened?" Penny demanded, her brown eyes wide and startled.
"And hurry it up, will you, please?" Dundee urged the long distance operator before hanging up the receiver and answering Penny's question. "That's just the trouble—nothing's happened, and nothing is very likely to happen here. I'm determined to go to New York and work on this pesky case from that end—"
"Then you've come around to Captain Strawn's theory that it was a New York gunman?" Penny asked hopefully.
"Not by a jugful!... But what's the matter with you this morning, young woman? You're looking less like a new penny and more like one that has been too much in circulation."
"Thanks!" Penny retorted sarcastically; then she grinned wryly. "You are right, as a matter of fact. I was up too late last night—bridge at the Mileses'."
"Bridge!" Dundee ejaculated incredulously. "So the bridge partydidtake place, in spite of the society editor's discreet announcement yesterday that 'owing to the tragic death of Mrs. Selim, the regular every-other-Wednesday dinner-bridge of the Forsyte Alumnae Association will not be held this evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tracey Miles, as scheduled'."
"It wasn't a 'dinner-bridge' and it really wasn't intended to be a party," Penny corrected him. "It just sort of happened, and of all the ghastly evenings—"
"Tell me about it," Dundee suggested. "Knowing this town's telephone service as I do, I'll have plenty of time to listen, and you don't know how all-agog I am for inside gossip on Hamilton's upper crust."
"Idiot!" Penny flung at him scornfully. "You know society would bore you to death, but I don't think you would have been exactly bored last night, knowing, as I do, your opinion of Dexter Sprague."
"Sprague? Good Lord! Was he there?... This does promise to be interesting! Tell me all!"
"Give me time!" Penny snapped. "I might as well talk, since there's almost no work for me to do, with Bill away.... Ralph called me up last night at dinner time, and asked me if I felt equal to playing bridge again. He said that he, Clive, Tracey and Johnny Drake had lunched together yesterday—as they frequently do—at the Athletic Club, and that Judge Marshall, who had been lunching at another table with his friend, Attorney Sampson, stopped at their table and suggested a bridge game at his home for last night. Hugo said he wanted to coax Karen into playing again, so she would get over her hysterical aversion to the game since she had to replay that awful 'death hand'.... You see," Penny explained parenthetically, "Hugo is a regular bridge fiend, and naturally he doesn't want to be kept out of his game."
"Brute!" Dundee cried disgustedly. "Why couldn't he give the poor girl a few days more?"
"That's what I thought," Penny acknowledged. "ButIdidn't get an inhibition against bridge, and the idea rather appealed to me personally. The last few days haven't been particularly cheerful ones, so I told Ralph I'd be glad to go. Tracey had suggested his house, instead of Hugo's, because Betty wasn't well yesterday and Flora wouldn't want to leave her for a whole evening. Well, Ralph and I—"
"Are you going to marry Ralph Hammond, Penny?" Dundee interrupted, as if prompted by casual interest.
Penny's pale face flushed vividly. "No. I'm not in love with him, and I'm sure he realizes I'm not and won't ask me again. But Ihadto say yes Sunday! I simply couldn't let you walk in on us, after I'd permitted you to eavesdrop while he was talking, without first saying the one thing that would convince him that I believed in his innocence and hadn't set a trap for him."
"I see!" Dundee acknowledged soberly, but his blue eyes shone with sudden joy. "Oh! There's long distance! Just a minute, darling!... Hello! Hello!... Yes, this is Dundee.... Oh! All right! Try again in fifteen minutes, will you?" He hung up the receiver and explained to Penny: "Sanderson hasn't reached the hospital yet, but is expected soon.... Go on with your story.... Who all played bridge at the Mileses'? You don't mean to say Dexter Sprague was invited, too!"
Penny's face was still a brilliant pink as she answered: "I refuse to have my climax spoiled!... When Ralph and I got there at eight, we found that Peter and Lois had dined with Tracey and Flora and that they were delighted at the prospect of bridge, as a relief from endless discussions of the murder. We'd hardly got there when the Marshalls came, poor little Karen not suspecting that she was going to have to play. Then came Johnny Drake alone, with the news that Carolyn was in bed and very miserable with a summer cold. Polly walked over from her house, which is on the next hill to the right, you know. She said Clive had decided to work late at the office, and had promised to call for her about eleven, to take her home."
"What about Janet Raymond? Was she left out?" Dundee asked.
"I told you it wasn't a planned affair," Penny reminded him. "But Flora did telephone her, and she said she didn't feel like coming. She's been moping about like a sick cat since Nita's death. We all knew she was idiotically in love with Dexter Sprague, and it must have been an awful blow to her to hear you read aloud that note Nita received from Sprague."
"So I noticed," Dundee nodded, recalling the deathly pallor of the girl's face as Sprague had glibly explained away that damning note and all its implications.
"Well," Penny continued, "Tracey suggested bridge, and at first Karen flatly refused to play, but Hugo finally persuaded her.... Karen would do absolutelyanythingfor that ridiculous old husband of hers! I simply can't understand it—how she can be in love with him, I mean!"
"I thought you liked Judge Marshall," Dundee laughed.
"Oh, I do—in a way.... But fancy a young girl like Karen being in love with him!... Well, anyway, we all went out to the east porch, which is kept in readiness for bridge all summer. Iron bridge tables, covered with oilcloth, and with oilcloth pouches for the cards and score pads, so there's never any bother about scurrying in with things on account of rain. It's a roofed, stone-floored porch, right outside the living-room, and under it are the garages, so it's high and cool, with a grand view of Mirror Lake down below, and of the city in the distance." She sighed, and Dundee knew that she was thinking of her own lost home in Brentwood—the fine old Colonial mansion which had been sacrificed to her father's disastrous Primrose Meadows venture. Then she went on: "I don't know why I am telling you all this, except that the setting was so pleasant that we should have had a much better time than we did."
"You're an artful minx, Penny!" Dundee chuckled. "You're working up suspense for the entrance of the villain!"
"Then let me do it justice," Penny retorted. "Lois and Peter, Ralph and I, made up one table for bridge; Tracey and Polly, Judge Marshall and Karen the other. Flora said she didn't want to play, because she wanted to be free to keep an eye on Betty, although she protested she had perfect faith in Lydia, who, Flora says, is proving to be a marvel with the children. And Johnny Drake asked her to play anagrams with him, in between trips to the nursery. Johnny has a perfect pash for anagrams, and is a wow at 'em. So Tracey got the box of anagrams out of the trophy room—"
"The trophy room?" Dundee repeated, amused.
"That's what Tracey calls it," Penny explained impatiently, "because he has a couple of golf cups and Flora has an immense silver atrocity which testifies to the fact that she was the 'lady's tennis champion' of the state for one year. There are also some mounted fish and some deer heads with incredible antlers, but the room is really used as a catch-all for all the sports things—racquets, golf clubs, skis, ping-pong table, etc.... Anyway, Tracey brought out the box of anagrams, and we were all having a pretty good time when, at half past eight, the butler announced 'Mr. Dexter Sprague'!"
"Your tone makes me wish I'd been there," Dundee acknowledged. "What happened?"
"You know how slap-em-on-the-back Tracey always is?" Penny asked, grinning. "Well, you should have seen him and heard him as he dismissed poor Whitson—the butler—as if he were giving him notice, instead of letting him off for the night! And the icy dignity with which he greeted poor Sprague—"
"PoorSprague?" Dundee echoed.
"Well, after all, Spraguehadbeen received by all the crowd before Nita's death," Penny retorted. "I think it was rather natural for him to think he'd still be welcome. He began to apologize for his uninvited presence, saying he had felt lonesome and depressed and had just 'jumped into a taxi' and come along, hoping to find the Mileses in. Flora tried to act the lady hostess, but Peter got up from his bridge table and said in tones even icier than Tracey's: 'Will you excuse me, Flora? And will you take my place, Drake?... I'm going into the library. I don't enjoy the society of murderers!'"
"Good Lord!" Dundee ejaculated, shocked but admiring. "Did Sprague make a quick exit?"
"Not just then," Penny said mysteriously. "Of course everyone was simply stunned, but Sprague retorted cheerfully, 'Neither do I, Dunlap!' Peter stalked on into the living room on his way to the library, Johnny took his place at the bridge table, and Tracey, at an urgent signal from Flora, offered his seat at the other table to Sprague, as if he were making way for a leper. Poor Polly had to be Sprague's partner. Flora, as if she were terrified at what might happen—you know how frightfully tense and nervous she is—made an excuse to run upstairs for a look at Betty."
"And something terrible did happen," Dundee guessed. "You're looking positively ghoulish. Out with it!"
"After about half an hour of playing without pivoting," Penny went on imperturbably, "Hugo bid three spades, Karen raised him—in a trembling voice—to five spades, Hugo of course went to a little slam, and Dexter Sprague, if you can believe me, said: 'Better not leave the table, Karen.A little slam-bid in spades has been known to be fatal to the dummy!'"
"No!" Dundee was genuinely shocked, but before he could say more the telephone rang. "Sanderson at last.... Hello! Chicago?... Oh, hello, Captain Strawn!...What's that?... Oh, my God!... Where did you say the body is?"
He listened for a long minute, then, with a dazed "Thanks! I'll be over," he hung up the receiver.
"Sprague—murdered!" he answered the horrified question in Penny's eyes. "Body discovered this morning about nine by one of the Miles' maids, in what you described just now as the 'trophy room'.... Shot—just below the breastbone, Captain Strawn says."
"The trophy room!" Penny cried. "Then—that'swhere he was all the time after he disappeared so strangely last night—"
"Whoa, Penny!" Dundee commanded. "Get hold of yourself! You're shaking all over.... I want to know everythingyouknow—as quickly and as accurately as you can tell it. Go right on—"
"Poor Dexter!" Penny groaned, covering her convulsed face with her hands. "To think that he wasdeadwhen we were saying such horrid things about him—"
"Don't waste sympathy on him, honey!" Dundee cut in, his voice very gentle but urgent. "If he had heeded my warning Monday he wouldn't be dead now."
"What do you mean?" Penny gasped, but she was already calmer. "Your warning—?"
"I had a strong suspicion that he was mixed up with Nita in her blackmail scheme and I took the trouble to warn him not to try to carry on with it. Yesterday afternoon I begged Strawn to have him shadowed to see that he kept out of mischief. I was afraid the temptation would be too strong for him, but Strawn wouldn't listen to me—still clinging to his theory of a New York gunman.... Feeling better now, honey? Can you go on? I want to get out to the Miles house as soon as I can."
"You're getting very—affectionate, aren't you?" Penny gave him a wobbly smile in which, however, there was no reproof. "I think I can go on now—. Where was I?"
"Good girl!" Dundee applauded, but his heart was beating hard with something more than excitement over Sprague's murder. "You'd just told me about Sprague's warning Karen not to leave the table when she became dummy after Judge Marshall's little slam bid in spades."
"I remember," Penny said, pressing her fingers into her temples. "But Karendidleave the table. When Sprague said that awful thing, poor Karen burst into tears and ran from the porch into the living room, Hugo started to follow her, but Sprague halted him by apologizing very humbly, and then by adding: 'I'd really like to see you play this hand, sir. I believe I've got the cards to set you with....' Of course he could not have said anything better calculated to hold Hugo, who, as I said, is a regular fiend when it comes to bridge.... Well, Hugo played the hand and made his little slam, and then he again started to go look for Karen, but Polly, who was Sprague's partner, you know, told him in that brusque way of hers to go on with the game and give Karen a chance to have her little weep in peace. Probably Hugo would have gone to look for her anyway, but just then Flora came back. She said Betty was asleep at last and that her temperature was normal, and when she heard about Karen, she offered to take her hand until Karen felt like coming back."
"What did Drake do then? He'd been playing anagrams with Mrs. Miles, you said," Dundee interrupted.
"Don't you remember?—I told you Johnny had taken Peter's place at our table after Peter refused to breathe the same air as Dexter Sprague," Penny reminded him. "Ralph and I, Lois and Johnny were playing together, and just at the time I became dummy, Sprague became dummy at the other table. He rose, saying he had to go telephone for a taxi, and passed from the porch into the living room—"
"Where is the telephone?"
"The one the guests use is on a table in the hall closet, where we put our things," Penny explained. "You can shut the door and hold a perfectly private conversation.... Well,we never saw Dexter Sprague again!"
"Good Lord! Another bridge dummy murdered!" Dundee groaned. "At least the newspapers will be happy!... Didn't anyone go to look for him after the hand was played?"
"Not straight off," Penny answered, with an obvious effort to remember clearly every detail. "Let's see—Oh, yes! That hand was played out before Ralph had finished playing his, at our table, so I was free to pay attention to the other table. Flora said that since they couldn't play another hand until Dexter came back, she thought she'd better hunt up Karen, who hadn't come back yet."
"How long was Mrs. Miles away from the porch?" Dundee asked quickly.
"Oh, I don't know—ten minutes, maybe. She came back alone, saying she had found Karen in her bedroom—Flora's room, of course—crying inconsolably. Flora told Hugo he'd better go up to her himself, since she evidently had her feelings hurt because he hadn't followed her in the first place. Tracey, who wasn't playing bridge, you remember, because he had given up his place to Sprague, asked Flora if she'd seen Sprague, and Flora said, in a surprised voice, 'No! I wonder where he is all this time,' and Polly said that probably he'd gone to the lavatory, which opens into the main hall and is next to the library.... Well, pretty soon Judge Marshall and Karen came back—"
"Pretty soon?—Just how long was Judge Marshall gone?" Dundee pressed her, his pencil, which had been flying to take down her every word, poised over the notebook he had snatched from her desk.
"I can't say exactly!" Penny protested thornily. "I was playing again at the other table. I suppose it was about ten minutes, for Ralph and I had made another rubber, I remember.... Anyway, Karen was smiling like a baby that has had a lot of petting, but she said Hugo had promised her she wouldn't have to play bridge any more that evening, so Flora remained at that table, playing opposite Hugo, while Tracey played with Polly. As soon as Tracey became dummy, Flora suggested he go look for Sprague."
"And how long washegone from the porch?" Dundee asked.
"Less than no time," Penny assured him. "He was back before Polly had finished playing the hand. He said he'd gone to the hall closet, where Whitson, the butler, would have put Sprague's hat and stick, and that he had found they were gone.... Well—and you needn't put down 'well' every time I say it!" Penny interrupted herself tartly. "Tracey said he supposed Sprague had ordered his taxi and had decided to walk down the hill to meet it, and he added that that was exactly the kind of courtesy you could expect from a cad and a bounder like Sprague—walking in uninvited, making Karen cry, then walking out, without a word, leaving the game while he was dummy. Flora spoke up then and said it was no wonder Dexter had left without saying good-by, considering how he'd been treated. Then Tracey said something ugly and sarcastic about Flora's being disappointed because Sprague had decided not to spend the whole evening—"
"A first-class row, eh?" Dundee interrupted, with keen interest.
"Rather! Flora almost cried, said Tracey knew good and well that she had only been playing-up to Sprague before Nita's death, in the hope of getting the lead in the Hamilton movie, if Sprague got the job of directing it, and Tracey said, 'So you call it playing-up, do you? It looked like high-powered flirting to me—or maybe it was more than a flirtation!...' Then Flora told him he hadn't acted jealous at the time, and that heknewhe'd have been glad if she'd got the lead.... Well, just then along came Janet—"
"Janet Raymond?" Dundee ejaculated. "I thought you said she had refused the invitation when Mrs. Miles phoned her."
"So she had, but she said she changed her mind, had been blue all evening, and needed cheering up."
"How did she get in?"
"She walked over from her house, which isn't very far from the Mileses', and simply came up the path to the porch," Penny explained. "Tracey asked her if she had seen Sprague on the road—it's the same road Dexter would have had to take going down the hill to the main road—and she acted awfully queer—"
"How?" Dundee demanded.
"Exactly as she would act, since she was in love with him," Penny retorted. "She turned very red, and asked if Sprague had inquired for her, and Flora quite sharply told her he hadn't. Then Janet said she was very much surprised that Sprague had been there, and that she couldn't understand why he had behaved so strangely. Then Lois said she might as well go fetch Peter from the library, since Sprague was no longer there to contaminate the atmosphere. She came back—"
"After how long a time?"
"Oh, about five minutes, I suppose," Penny answered wearily. "She came in, her arm linked with Peter's, and laughing. Said she had found him reading a 'Deadwood Dick' thriller.... One of Tracey's hobbies—" she broke off to explain, "—is collecting old-fashioned thrillers, like the Nick Carter, Diamond King Brady, Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick paper-bound books. Of course he didn't take up that hobby until a lot of other rich men had done it first. There was never anybody less original than poor Tracey.... Well, Flora gave up her place to Janet, and again played anagrams with Johnny, Peter taking his original place at our table. Suddenly Polly threw down her cards—she'd been having rotten luck and seemed out of sorts—and said she didn't want to play bridge any more. So poor Flora again had to be the perfect hostess, and switch from anagrams to bridge."
"And Polly played anagrams with Drake?" Dundee prompted.
"No. She said she thought anagrams were silly, and wandered off the porch and down the path, calling over her shoulder that she was going to take a walk. Tracey asked Johnny if he'd mind mixing the highballs and bringing out the sandwiches. Said Whitson had left a thermos bucket of ice cubes on the sideboard, some bottles of ginger ale, and a tray of glasses and sandwiches. Told him he'd find decanters of Scotch and rye, and to bring out both."
"So Drake left the room, too," Dundee mused. "Oh, Lord. IknewI'd find that every last one of the six had a chance to kill Sprague, as well as Nita!... How long was Polly Beale gone on this walk of hers?"
"She came in with a pink water lily—said she'd been down to the lily ponds, and that Flora had enough to spare her one," Penny answered. "She couldn't have been away more than ten minutes, because Johnny was just mixing the highballs, according to our preference for Scotch or rye—or plain ginger ale, which both Ralph and I chose. After we'd had our drinks and the sandwiches, we went on with bridge. Polly and Johnny just wandered about the porch or watched the game at the two tables. And about five minutes after eleven Clive Hammond arrived, coming up the path to the porch, just as Janet had. After he came, there was no more bridge, but we sat around on the porch and talked until midnight. Clive said he was too tired to play bridge—that he'd been struggling all evening with a knotty problem."
"I can sympathize with him!" Dundee said grimly, as he rose. "I've got my own knotty problem awaiting me.... When that call comes through from Chicago, tell Sanderson the bad news, and say I'll telephone him later."
The Miles home, still known in Hamilton as the Hackett place, since it had been built more than thirty years before by Flora's father, old Silas Hackett, dead these seven years, dominated one of the most beautiful of the wooded hills which encircled Mirror Lake in the Brentwood section. Of modified Tudor architecture, its deep red, mellowed bricks had achieved in three decades almost the same aged dignity and impressiveness as characterized the three-century-old mansion in England which Silas Hackett's architect had used as an inspiration.
The big house faced the lake, a long series of landscaped terraces leading down to the water's edge, but the driveway wound from the state road up a side of the hill, to the main entrance at the rear of the house.
Once before—on Sunday, the day after Nita Selim's murder, when he had come to interview Lydia Carr and had secured the alibi which had eliminated Dexter Sprague as a suspect—Dundee had driven his car up this hill between the tall yew hedges. But then he had taken the fork which led to the hooded doorway over the kitchen; had descended the kitchen stairs with Lydia, to the servants' sitting room in the basement. Now he continued along the main driveway to the more impressive entrance, whose flanking, slim turrets frowned down upon a line of police cars and motorcycles.
His approach must have been expected and observed, for it was the master of the house who opened the great, iron-studded doors and invited the detective into the broad main hall, at the end of which, down three steps, lay the immense living room. The detective's first glance took in stately armchairs of the Cromwell period, thick, mellow-toned rugs, and, in the living room beyond, splendid examples of Jacobean furniture.
"A horrible thing to happen in a man's home, Dundee," Miles was saying, his plump, rosy face blighted with horror. "I can't realize yet that we actually slept as usual with a corpse lying down here all night! And I have only myself to blame—"
"What do you mean?" Dundee asked.
"Why, that the—the body wasn't discovered sooner," Miles explained. "If it had occurred to me that Whitson hadn't closed the trophy room windows, I should have gone in to close and lock them when I made the rounds of living room, dining room and library, after our guests were gone last night."
A pale-faced, bald-headed butler had materialized while his master was speaking. "Beg pardon, sir, but I did not close the trophy room windows because I thought you might be using the room again.... You see, sir," and Whitson turned to Dundee, "Mr. Miles and Mr. Dunlap played ping-pong in the trophy room after dinner until the other guests began to arrive, and I did not want them to find the room stuffy—it was a warm night—if any of the guests—"
"I see," Dundee interrupted. "Who, to your knowledge, was the last person to enter the trophy room last night, Mr. Miles?"
"I was, except Sprague, of course, and I had no idea he'd gone there. Drake wanted to play anagrams, and before the bridge game started, I went to the trophy room to get the box," Miles explained. "I turned off the light when I left, and there was no light burning in there this morning when Celia, the parlor maid, went there to put the anagram box back in the cabinet, and found the body.... Flora—Mrs. Miles—had brought the anagrams in from the porch and left them on a table in the living room, as our guests were getting ready to leave. There was nothing else to bring in, in case of rain. The bridge tables are of iron, covered with oilcloth, and fitted with oilcloth bags for the cards, score pads, and pencils—"
"Yes, I know," Dundee interrupted. "Miss Crain has already told me all about that, and a good many details of the party itself.... By the way, where is Mrs. Miles now?"
"In bed. The doctor is with her. She is prostrated from the shock."
"Where is this room you call the trophy room?" Dundee asked. "No, don't bother to come with me. Just point it out. It's on this floor, I understand."
Miles pointed past the great circular staircase that wound upward from the main hall. "You can't see the door from here, but it's behind the staircase. Celia found the door closed this morning, and no light on, as I said—"
Dundee cut him short by marching toward the door which was again closed. He entered so noiselessly that Captain Strawn, Dr. Price and the fingerprint expert, Carraway, did not hear him. For a moment he stood just inside the door and let his eyes wander about the room which Penny Crain had already described. It was not a large room—twelve by fourteen feet, possibly—but it looked even smaller, crowded as it was with the long ping-pong table, bags of golf clubs, fishing tackle, tennis racquets, skis and sleds. There were two windows in the north wall of the room, looking out upon the yew-hedged driveway, and between them stood a cabinet of numerous big and little drawers.
Not until he had taken in the general aspect of the room did Dundee look at the thing over which Captain Strawn and the coroner were bending—the body of Dexter Sprague.
The alien from New York had fallen about four feet from the window nearer the east wall of the trophy room. He lay on his side, his left cheek against the floor, the fingers of his left hand still clutching the powder-burned bosom of his soft shirt, now stiff with dried blood, a pool of which had formed and then half congealed upon the rug. The right hand, the fingers curled but not touching each other, lay palm-upward on the floor at the end of the rigid, outstretched arm. The one visible eye was half open, but on the sallow, thin face, which had been strikingly handsome in an obvious sort of way, was a peace and dignity which Dundee had never seen upon Sprague's face when the man was alive. The left leg was drawn upward so that the knee almost touched the bullet-pierced stomach.
"How long has he been dead, doctor?" Dundee asked quietly.
"Hello, boy!" Dr. Price greeted him placidly. "Always the same question! I've been here only a few minutes, and I've already told Strawn that I shall probably be unable to fix the hour of death with any degree of accuracy."
"Took your time, didn't you, Bonnie?" Captain Strawn greeted his former subordinate on the Homicide Squad. "Doc says he's been dead between ten and twelve hours. Since it's nearly ten now, that means Sprague was killed some time between nine and eleven o'clock last night."
"Better say between nine o'clock and midnight last night," Dr. Price suggested. "He may have lived an hour or more—unconscious, of course. For the indications are that he did not die instantly, but staggered a few steps, clutching at the wound. But of course I shall have to perform an autopsy first——"
Dundee crossed the room, stepping over the dead man's stick—a swank affair of dark, polished wood, with a heavy knob of carved onyx, which lay about a foot beyond the reach of the curled fingers of the stiff right hand.
"Sprague's hat?" he asked, pointing to a brightly banded straw which lay upon the top of the cabinet.
"Yes," Strawn answered. "And did you notice the window screen?"
He pointed to the window in front of which the body lay. The sash of leaded panes was raised as high as it would go, and beneath it was a screen of the roller-curtain type, raised about six inches from the window sill. A pair of curved, nickel-plated catches in the center of the inch-wide metal band on the bottom of the coppernet curtain showed how the screen was raised or lowered.
Dundee nodded, frowning, and Strawn began eagerly:
"You'll have to admit I was right now, boy. You've sneered at my gunman theory and tried to pin Nita's murder on one of Hamilton's finest bunch of people, but you'll have to admit now that every detail of this set-up bears me out."
"Yes?"
"Sure. This is the way I figure it out: Sprague has good reason to be afraid he's next on the program. He's nervous. He hops a taxi at his hotel and comes here—can't stick to his room any longer. Wants a little human companionship. This crowd here—and I have Miles' word for it—ain't any too glad to see him, and shows it. He phones for a taxi to go back to his hotel—about 9:15, that was, Miles says—but decides to walk down the hill to meet it. Don't want to go back out on the porch and lie about having had a good time, when he hasn't.... Well, he opens the front door, or what would be the front door if this was any ordinary house, but before he steps out he sees or hears something—probably a rustling in the hedge across the driveway, or maybe he even sees a face, in the light from the lanterns on each side of the door. He feels sure Nita's murderer has trailed him and is lying in wait for him. In a panic he darts into this room, and don't turn on the light for fear he'll be seen from the windows, but he can see well enough to make out how the screens work, and he was familiar with the house anyway. I'll bet you anything you like Sprague stayed in this room for an hour or two, till he thought the coast was clear, then eased up this screen, intending to climb out of the window and drop to the ground.... Not much of a drop at that. You can see that the tall hedge on this side of the driveway comes pretty near up to these windows.... Well, I figure he laid his hat on this cabinet, intending to reach in for it when he was outside, but that he had already made some little noise which the gunman was listening for, and that when he got the screen up this high, the gunman, crouching under the window, let go with the same gun and silencer that he used to bump off Nita.... I've got Miles' word for it that neither he nor anybody else heard a shot.... Of course, nobody knew Sprague was in here, and since his hat and stick was both missing from the hall closet, they took it for granted he'd beat it.... Any objections to that theory, boy?"
"Just a few—one in particular," Dundee said. "But I grant it's a good one, provided Dr. Price's autopsy bears you out as to the course of the bullet, and that Carraway finds Sprague's fingerprints on that contrivance for raising the screen. Even then——"
But Dundee was not allowed to finish his sentence, for Strawn was summoned to the telephone, by Whitson. When he returned there was a slightly bewildered look on his heavy old face.
"That's funny.... Collins—the lad I sent to check up on the taxi companies—says he's located the driver that answered Sprague's call last night. The driver says he was called about 9:15, told to come immediately, and to wait for Sprague at the foot of the hill, on the main road. He says he waited there until half past ten, then went on back to town, sore'n a boiled owl."
"It doesn't look exactly as if Sprague were afraid of anyoneoutside of this houselast night, does it?" Dundee asked. "By the way, I suppose you've sent for everyone who was here?"
"Sure!" But again Captain Strawn looked uncomfortable. "But we haven't been able to locate the Beale girl and Clive Hammond."
"I'd give a good deal to know which of those two suggested that it would be a good idea to get married the first thing this morning," Dundee mused aloud, as he put down the second extra whichThe Hamilton Morning Newshad had occasion to issue that Thursday.
It was two o'clock, and the district attorney's "special investigator" sat across the desk from Captain Strawn, in his former chief's office at Police Headquarters.
The first extra had screamed in its biggest head type: SECOND BRIDGE DUMMY MURDER! and had carried, in detail, Captain Strawn's comforting theory that Dexter Sprague's erstwhile friends had again been made the victims of a New York gunman's fiendish cleverness in committing his murders under circumstances which would inevitably involve Hamilton's most highly respected and socially prominent citizens in the police investigation.
But the second extra had a more romantic streamer headline: HAMMOND WEDDING DELAYS MURDER QUIZ.
The story beneath a series of smaller headlines began:
"At the very moment—9:05 o'clock this morning—when Celia Hunt, maid in the Tracey Miles home in the Brentwood district of Hamilton, was screaming the news of her discovery of the dead body of Dexter Sprague, New York motion picture director, in what is known as the 'trophy room,' Miss Polly Beale and Mr. Clive Hammond were applying for a marriage license in the Municipal Building.
"At 9:30, when Miss Beale and Mr. Hammond were exchanging their vows in the rectory of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which both bride and groom have been members since childhood, Captain John Strawn of the Homicide Squad was listening to Tracey Miles' account of the strange disappearance of Dexter Sprague last night from an impromptu bridge game, after he had announced his intention of taking advantage of the fact that he was 'dummy' to telephone for a taxi.
"And at 10 o'clock, when the new Mrs. Hammond called her home to break the news of her marriage to her aunt, Mrs. Amelia Beale, the bride was in turn acquainted with the news of Sprague's murder and the fact that both she and her husband were wanted at the Miles home for questioning by the police, since both had been guests of Mr. and Mrs. Miles last night, although Mr. Hammond did not arrive until about 11 o'clock."
There followed a revision of the murder story as it had appeared in the first extra, with additional details supplied by Strawn, and with a line drawing of the scene of the crime—the trophy room itself and the forked driveway with its tall yew hedges. A dotted line illustrated Strawn's theory of Sprague's plan to elude the murderer who had followed him to the Miles home. Because of the curved sweep of the driveway toward the main entrance of the house, the tall hedge was less than two feet from the window with the partly opened screen.
"Captain Strawn's theory," read the text below the large drawing, "is that Sprague had good cause to fear he was being followed on his way to the Miles home; that he telephoned for a taxi to wait for him at the foot of the hill, and that he planned to leave the Miles house by way of the trophy room window, so that his lurking pursuer might have no knowledge of his departure. The drawing shows that his proposed flight would have been protected by hedges until he reached the wooded slope of the hill, provided his Nemesis was lurking in the opposite hedge across the driveway, where he could observe every departure from the Miles home."
"You've sure got a single-track mind, boy," Strawn chuckled. "So you think those two got married in such a hurry this morning because the law says a husband or a wife can't be made to testify against the other?"
"Possibly." Dundee grinned, unruffled. "But there is another possibility—which is why I should like to know who suggested this sudden wedding. I mean that we can't overlook the possibility that these two murders made either the bride or the groom feel perfectly safe in going on with the marriage. Polly Beale and Clive Hammond had been engaged for more than a year, you know, with no apparent reason for a long engagement.... As for my having a single-track mind, Captain, what about you? I have six possible suspects, all of whose names I know, and you have only one—whose name you do not know, and whose motive you can only guess at, whileIhave a perfectly good motive that might fit any one of my six—blackmail!"
"Is that so?" Strawn growled. "I'm not telling the papers everything, and if they are satisfied to call these murders 'crimes passionnels,' it's all right with me. But I'm not forgetting that Nita Selim banked ten thousand dollars cash after she got to Hamilton. My real theory now that Sprague has been killed is that Nita and Sprague had cooked up some sort of racket between them, and that when Nita got the chance to come to Hamilton with Mrs. Dunlap, she jumped at it, and she and Sprague sprung their racket, whatever it was, either just before or just after Nita left New York. Probably it was Nita's tip-off and Sprague did the actual dirty work himself, which explains that telegram that Nita sent him April 24, just three days after she got to Hamilton. Let's see again just what it says," and Strawn reached for a copy of the night letter which Dundee himself had unearthed the day before. "See: 'Everything Jake so far, but would feel safer you here—'"
"Yes, I remember the wording quite well," Dundee interrupted. "But you did not take it so seriously when I showed it to you yesterday. If you had—"
"All right! Rub it in!" Strawn snapped, flushing darkly. "If I had assigned a man to 'tail' Sprague, as you suggested, he wouldn't have been murdered—"
"He probably would have been murdered just the same," Dundee comforted the older man, "but we might have been lucky enough to have had an eye-witness."
"Oh, you and your theory!" Strawn growled. "But let me go on.... Nita meant she would feel safer about Sprague if he was here in Hamilton, too. But the guy they double-crossed in New York, or worked the badger game on, or something like that, got on their trail. But it took him weeks to do it, and Sprague followed Nita's advice. He got here on Sunday April 27, and on Monday the 28th Nita banked the first $5,000! Don't you see it, boy? Sprague brought with him the dough they'd got for their stunt, and thought it was safer for Nita to bank it in her name, since it wasn't the name she was known by in New York anyway. We've checked up on Sprague pretty thoroughly. He didn't have a bank book, either on his body or in his room, and every bank in town denies he had an account with them."
"If that theory is correct, it makes Nita Selim a pretty low character," Dundee mused aloud. "Not only did she kick him out as a lover, but she double-crossed him as her partner in crime, by willing the whole wad to Lydia Carr. Sprague must have received quite a shock when he heard Nita's will read at the inquest."
"Yeah," Strawn agreed. "It looks like Mrs. Dunlap picked a sweet specimen to make a friend out of.... Well, that's my theory, and I think it explains everything. Their victim in New York simply hired a gunman, or come down here himself, when he got on their tracks. Of course it was a good stunt to make it look like a local crime—figured he'd foolmejust as he fooledyou! So the murderer simply trailed Nita around, and saw that whole bunch of society people shooting at a target at Judge Marshall's place, with a gun equipped with a Maxim silencer. Too good an opportunity to be missed, so he bides his chance to swipe the gun and silencer. To make sure it will look like a local crime, he pops off Nita when that same bunch is at her house, but it takes a few days longer before he has the same opportunity to get Sprague. But it come last night and he grabbed it."
"A very plausible theory, and one which, in general, the whole city of Hamilton has been familiar with since the night Nita was murdered," Dundee remarked significantly.
"What do you mean?" Strawn demanded. "It's waterproof, ain't it? Doc Price says the bullet—and a .32 caliber one at that—entered Sprague's body just below the breastbone and traveled an upward course till it struck the extreme right side of the heart. The bullet entered exactly where it would have to, if the murderer was crouching under that window while Sprague was raising the screen. And we have Carraway's report that it was Sprague's fingerprints on those nickleplated things you have to press together to make the screen roll up or down. Furthermore, I haven't a doubt in the world that the ballistics expert in Chicago will report that the bullet was fired from the same gun that killed Nita Selim."
"Neither have I," Dundee agreed. "But what I meant was that you had obligingly furnished the murderer who fitsmytheory with a theory he—or she—would not have upset for the world!... Listen!" and he bent forward very earnestly: "I'm willing to grant that Sprague was shot from the outside, through the window, when Sprague raised the screen. But there our theories part company. I believe that the murderer was a guest in the Selim home last night, that he or she had made an appointment to meet Sprague there, on the promise of paying the hush money he had demanded, in spite of my warning to him not to carry on with the blackmail scheme. Naturally he or she—and I'll say 'he' from now on, for the sake of convenience—had no intention of being seen entering that room. The bridge game was suggested by Judge Marshall at noon. There was plenty of time for the rendezvous to be made with Sprague. As I see it, the murderer told Sprague to excuse himself from the game when he became dummy, and to go to the trophy room and wait there until the murderer had a chance to slip away and appear beneath the window. Sprague had been promised that, when he raised the screen at a tap or a whispered request, a roll of bills would be handed to him, but—he received a bullet instead."
"And which one of your six suspects have you picked on?" Strawn asked sarcastically.
"That's just the trouble. There are still six," Dundee acknowledged with a wry grin. "After Sprague's disappearance, every one of the six was absent from the porch at one time or another.... No, by George! There aresevensuspects now! I was about to forget Peter Dunlap, who admits he was alone on a fishing trip when Nita was murdered and who left the porch last night to go to the library, as soon as Sprague arrived!... As for the movements of the original six after Sprague disappeared: Polly Beale took a walk about the grounds; Flora Miles went upstairs to hunt for Karen Marshall, and was gone more than ten minutes; Drake went to the dining room to get the refreshments, and no one can say exactly how long he was gone; Judge Marshall went up to get his wife, and had time to make a little trip on the side; Janet Raymond walked over from her home, and passed that very window, arriving after Sprague had disappeared; and, finally, Clive Hammond arrived alone in his car, which he parked within a few feet of that window. This morning he gets married——"
"A telegram, sir!" interrupted a plainclothesman, who had entered without knocking.
Strawn snatched at it, read it, then exulted: "Read this, boy! I guessthissettles the business!"
The telegram had been filed half an hour before and was from the city editor ofThe New York Evening Press: